Inbox (Kaisou)

[schoolingfish]

Am I doing it right? Is it rec-oh! It is! Hi! You missed me, leave a message!

Comments

text; un: signorvespa

[prontissimo]

[ Alberto stayed home on his own rather than exploring the city with Luca today, but that doesn't mean Alberto doesn't want to hang out still — even if it's just a text. Aaand now that Luca's here, he's naturally the new primary target for Random Alberto Texts... oh, goodie. Apropos of nothing, he sends a short video that he's already watched probably like a dozen times on his own. Cracks him up every time. And he'll still crack up at it and watch it again after sending it to Luca, until there's no dopamine left in it... ]

💯% ACCURATE! 😂😂🤣🤑

Text; un: Seeingtheworld

[schoolingfish]

IT IS! This is exactly what coming out of the water is like the first time!

I bet a sea monster made this.

And how do you make those faces? And that red text with the underlines?

[prontissimo]

HAH your right!! I wonder if that guy IS a sea monster.
he made another movie that seems PRETTY SEA MONSTER-y if he is...!

[ And attaches another short video that's been cracking him up. ]

anyway you gotta press the Options Dots...... play around with it, youll find it. there's little U to underline stuff. B to make it fat. i to make the letters fall over... and then there's like a little circle-y symbol to find all the faces and drawings. i love those haha!
🤠🤌🏼🌊🏝🐢🛵🍃🌙✨🍉☕️🎣👩🏼‍🦰🧑🏽‍🦱👦🏻🏊‍♀️🍝🚲⛈️☔️💪🏻👨🏻😾🏆📸📰🇮🇹😏

[schoolingfish]

Oh, yeah. The way he portrays land as a horrifying death race seems just like something my mom would do.

I'm going to try it out!

😊😸🧜‍♂️🐶🐟🌕🌎🌍🌏🪐💫🛵🪝🌠

Wow that's amazing!

[prontissimo]

hahaha YEAH she would!! 😹
your mom is great, Luca, she loves you so much…
But she’s terrifying hahaha!! 😳😬🤣😅

[ That conversation convincing her to let Luca leave might have been the hardest thing he’s ever accomplished? Probably. Indeed, Nonna Paguro put it right, it was not easy… But clearly Alberto and Daniela are both forces to be reckoned with. ]

Nice choice in pictures…😏👌🏽
See, your already great at the Everuthing Machine, Luca!!🤩🤗📱👍🏽
🛤🚂💔📝🎣🛶🔥❤️‍🩹🌅🌌🏙😱🤯😤
🏰🧚🏼🏚🧔🏻‍♀️🐀🏢📺📼💸🤑💰🌤👨🏽‍🤝‍👨🏻‼️

[ Illustrating his life since Luca left for school, and since arriving here… a little bittersweet, a little baffling, but sweet sentiments all the same. Though the boat on fire is, uh, not a story Luca has heard yet, um…? What’s that about…? Ahem. ]

[schoolingfish]

Oh yeah, she definitely is.

[The fact that Alberto was able to convince her to do anything is honestly amazing to Luca.]

Thanks! 😊🙂🎆

Mother of pearl! You told a whole story with your pictures! The first part makes me kind of sad, but I love the ending because we're together again and I'm so excited!

[prontissimo]

[ All the feelings suddenly… and all he wanted to do was share a funny video about life on land. It’s been several days (he’s not been counting exactly) since Luca arrived and he’s still getting these flashes of “woah this is real” that leave him a little verklempt. They ARE together again. And sooner than he’d thought it’d be, too! It’s maybe a good thing Luca is out and about right now, so Alberto has a moment to just lie back in his nest of pillows, cheesing at his phone all alone before he replies. ]

🥰🤩🤗🙃😌
I’m so exited too!!! We’re gonna have so much fun here
Even more than in Portorosso
WAY less harpoons hahaha

Have you found anything cool out there yet today? What have you seen so far?

[schoolingfish]

YEAH! I met this guy who's also a monster, but he's a different kind that never looks human, and he says everyone here is okay with that!

He was pretty cool!

🙂😃😄😁

[prontissimo]

i know a guy like that too.
but he's cute and fuzzy so 🤷🏽‍♂️
no wonder the humans aren't afraid of him. no scales or spikes or slime... ha haha

what was his name? maybe its my friend!

[schoolingfish]

He mentioned you, so I'm sure it's him. His name's Asriel.

So you think him being cute and fuzzy is why the humans here are okay with him?

[prontissimo]

YUP
THAT'S HIM

did he mention he's also the PRINCE OF ALL MONSTERS......? 👑🤩🙀 HAH!

[ Oof... another bragging point... He's led such a life here without Luca. ]

anyway i don't thnk being cute and fuzzy HURTS right...?
ive met other humans who are probably ok but i dontknow, Luca... theres A LOT of humans here.

a little girl knows about me
and i THINK maybe this other human guy i know. but i don't know if he knows. but i think he does.

[ This... also doesn't inspire confidence, that Alberto's seeming to advise being cautious, but also doesn't seem to have good track over who he's exposed himself to. Oof, indeed. ]

[schoolingfish]

WOW! No, he never mentioned that!

Does that mean he's our prince?

And yeah, being cute and fuzzy probably helps.

There are a lot of humans here...I guess if it went bad, it would go really bad, wouldn't it? 😰

1/2

[prontissimo]

I don't know! He said hed never met a seamonster before me
and i never met a Boss Mosnter before HIM...
but he said his dad is the King of all monsters...? so maybe??
he's from "the Under Ground." so surface stuff is new for him too.
i dont think we should treat him like a aprince tho, hes just a kid like us
but it IS pretty cool that he happens to be a prince..... haha!

[ Asriel would surely appreciate this perspective much more than being a tool for Alberto's bragging. Alberto would never want Asriel to feel othered by his own coolness. He is legitimately impressed by (what little he knows of) Asriel's background, but they'd be just as close either way. It's not like Alberto's got a lot of stock in politics. He grew up alone on an island. The idea of royalty at all is such a distant concept for him... Asriel's nice and interesting and not-human. They're all in this together, he figures. Out of anyone, they've gotta have each other's backs. Buncha grownup-less monster kids in the big city... ]

2/2

[prontissimo]

[ Luca's next question draws a rare moment of deliberation out of Alberto, one of the small luxuries of modern communication that probably benefits him greatly here... He actually takes a moment to consider his words. The currently typing "..." blink off and on a couple times before his response comes through again after a slightly-longer-than-usual delay, lack of emoji showing some extra sincerity and caution... Just that Alberto's showing any restraint at all is an answer enough. ]

as for all the humans and all the danger:
i think there are TOO many humans for us to be scared
but just ENOUGH humans for us to be secret... you know what i mean?
if we think about it too much we'll go crazy but we should still be careful who we tell. thats how I've been doing it so far.

except for the little girl who overheard me talking to the fairies.
and the guy i met in the woods. those were accidents.
but it's fine. their fine.no one else knows. I haven't told anyone ON PURPOSE yet... except Asriel. but he doesn't count.

suzume is the little girl and katsuki is the guy. just so you know their names.

[schoolingfish]

Got it. I'll just keep treating him like a normal kid. Even if it is pretty cool that he's a prince.

[He hesitates before sending it, though, pausing and thinking about the next part.]

Okay. I think I get what you're saying. The people who found out already are probably fine, and it's okay if we share it with someone we trust, but we probably don't want to just tell everybody, right?

action; post-goosefight, pre-online goose drama

[prontissimo]

[ Today was a bad day. A very bad, very Not Good day.

All because of a goose. One goose. That goose.

It's been terrorizing the town but it's not like Alberto is very tuned into the grapevine; the only reason he's heard about this goose at all is because it also tried to attack Luca two days ago. And while that certainly is not a reason to go seeking the goose out, when the same goose (he assumes) tried to attack Alberto at the park today, it seemed a good reason to justify fighting back.

Noble and brave as that is, this proved wildly unwise. Luca was smart enough to run away from the start; Alberto only tried that approach after getting his ass absolutely handed to him by a vicious waterfowl. And he's coming home with the bruises, blood, and bad attitude to prove it. He closes the door with a loud slam, looking quite disheveled and disgruntled, twigs in his hair, dirt on his face, and wheels on Luca immediately. ]

Luca. Ho-ly stin-kin' sharks...!

[ Oh, man, biting on the syllables as he cusses and everything, this must be bad. He crosses the room with long, fast strides, then theatrically collapses face-down beside Luca in their giant mound of pillows, voice muffled but understandable as he speaks into it, sounding both furious and exasperated. Even as he seems to deflate, though, spreading himself akimbo, obviously exhausted, his tone doesn't betray his humiliating defeat, but, uh... yeah, no, wait, yes, it does. And if it doesn't? There are red scrapes and scratches down both his arms and one arm is even bloody, cgiuhersfjkn?! ]

You are never going to believe what the shell just happened to me...!

[prontissimo]

exactly.
we just gotta feel it out first

idon't know if there's anyone i trust that much yet though... except asriel. and the fairies. but i can't see them again.
MAYBE signor Bruno someday? i haven't decided. i don't know how he'd react. are there even sea monsters in colombia??? there have to be, right?

[ Having had so little concept of how huge and diverse the Earth actually is growing up, he's just kind of always assumed there must be sea folk in every ocean... but only since coming here and meeting humans from other countries, is he really starting to try and imagine sea folk in other countries better, and realizing how different they really might be. ]

[schoolingfish]

[Luca's on his stomach on the floor, feet idly kicking in the air, head propped up in his hands while he reads an astronomy textbook, fantasizing about all the different stars and planets when he's snapped back into reality by the slam of the door. He looks up at Alberto, eyes going wide when he sees the state his friend is in. He looks bad. Was he attacked? Did he jump off a rock and hit some rocks?]

Alberto! Holy carp, what happened?

[At least, no matter how bad Alberto looks right now, even though whatever it was clearly was bad enough to have him cursing, it's not so bad that Alberto doesn't have the energy for a dramatic lead up to whatever explanation he's going to give.]

[prontissimo]

[ Alberto lifts his head enough just to shoot Luca a look through narrowed eyes. Not aggravated at him, by any means, of course, but more for almost comedic effect... Still genuinely pretty pissed about this, though. ]

That bird. That big mean bird in the park you said tried to get you...?

[ That is to say: it got him. He rolls over onto his back dramatically, letting out a little "ow" and and "oof" as he does, minding the bruise on his side from the goose's powerful wings. He stays splayed out, staring at the ceiling blankly for a second before turning his neck to face Luca with another comically flat face. ]

That is the worst bird to ever bird.

[schoolingfish]

Right. Same here. I mean, if we meet anyone obviously not human I'm sure that would be fine, and it'll probably take some time before we can trust any humans, but I kind of like the idea of having people we can trust eventually. I mean, it was really hard hiding it all the time in Portorosso, so it would be nice if we didn't always have to hide it, right?

I mean, there are probably sea monsters in Columbia. Why wouldn't there be sea monsters in Columbia?

[prontissimo]

for sure. it got WAY easier after people knew. I don't think itll be like portorosso, it's just too big, but... we'll find the right people to trust. I promise.
and until we're sure of it, we'll be fine. We're even better at human-ing now than we were the first time!
nothing bad has happened to me so far and i've been here on my own for months. we'll figure it out. 😌

[ While there's just as much self-assuredness as can always be expected from Alberto, he's also gentler by far than that first time they took a stab at "human-ing" undercover — just a few weeks in Portorosso taught him some wisdom. And while life at Kaisou tests his wisdom quite inconsistently, he's been learning a lot here, too, and has been able to keep himself mostly safe up to this point. He's at least open to the idea of sound logic and safety, more importantly, far more than he'd been that first time around — even if he's still keen to minimize the danger in favor of placating themselves. Old habits die hard. ]

i don't know, are there sea folk in EVERY ocean? how different do you think they are? humans here seem so different than humans back home after all. wonder what other sea monsters even look like!

[schoolingfish]

Right. You're right. I mean, when we first came to land we didn't know what anything was and didn't understand a lot of stuff people were saying, but now we've been living in the human world for weeks! We've got this! 🙂

Uh...I guess longer for you.

[Wow, he'd never really thought about what sea monsters were like in the rest of the world, or even considered there might not be.]

I guess I don't really know? I just assumed sea monsters were everywhere. And I guess with how different my uncle looks from living in the deep, sea monsters from other places could also look totally different.

[prontissimo]

right! we know what we're doing now. we've got this! 👌🏽

[ A foreboding sense of confidence... But the intrigue of imagining other sea monster societies is far more entertaining for now. ]

that's what I figured too. I never really thought about it.
HA
What if
in another ocean
there are crab people who raise show fish for competitions...? 🏆🦀👀

[ Not that Alberto's particularly in the loop on competitive crab-raising, but the flip-flopped "alternate universe"-type scenario, from where he sits in their comfortable home in an alternate universe, is pretty amusing to imagine... a liiiittle bit scary, too, maybe. Might be worth illustrating later. ]

[schoolingfish]

Wow, that would be so weird. Kind of creepy, too. And I hope the crab people would be nicer than real crabs, because Pinchypessa is real crabby. 🦀💢🤕🙃

action; after having his goosefight wounds healed

[prontissimo]

[ Wherever Luca was out and about in town on his own this afternoon... he sure did miss a lot at home. The past couple hours have left Alberto both better and worse for wear.

Positive: All his wounds from the goosefight have been magically healed, which was pretty cool...

Negative: Heeeee got exposed as a sea monster and almost got into a physical altercation with a clever man who has mind-explode-y powers and a bad temper, who now knows their secret and may well be mad at Alberto for acting like a crazy jerk...

...Toss-up. Hm.

The bottom line, though, is that the altercation with Katsuki culminated in Alberto's many hanging jars full of trinkets were shattered to bits inexplicably, sending broken glass and all the jars' contents flying all over the room. Now, while these regularly fall and break and do the same, it's usually not all at once, and usually not projected across the room by invisible superpowers... Alberto did his best to clean it up after Katsuki left, but still managed to cut his foot on a stray piece of glass shortly after. Thankfully, August was already coming over to heal him... and in the process, August found out that not only does this feral child have a reputation, but also a roommate that few adults have even heard of, which was disconcerting on his end. Alberto, though, is none the wiser that this adult left their home thinking it's a dangerous death trap that children shouldn't be living in alone. Why would anyone think that...

Meantime, Luca will come home to find their home in mild disarray — which is "moderate-to-severe" disarray by normal people's standards. Alberto's pulled furniture away from the walls in attempts to get a totally thorough sweep of the place, diligently set on finding every piece of shattered glass, as if to prove a point to himself. Luca getting his foot cut, too, would symbolize everything that Alberto's just spent the afternoon fighting over, and he's feeling extra determined to feel like they're okay on their own... But it's been now some weeks since Luca's arrived, and slowly, inevitably, the threads of their disguise have started to fray. They've talked about wanting to find humans to trust and adults to have involved in their life, but Alberto talking about it and Alberto pursuing it are two different things.

When he walks in, Luca will find Alberto comically bent over on the floor on all hands and knees, cheek pressed to the ground peering under the cabinet where they keep their record player and vinyls, indelicately flinging a broom underneath it, trying to knock a piece of glass stuck in the corner out into easy reach. It'd be funny if there weren't something really... off... in the air somehow. First of all, there's no music playing in the apartment, which is a rarity; all the lights are on, even though it's not quite dusk yet, making the room exceedingly bright; and, uh, more noticeably...? There's about a half a dozen dead, cut up potted plants, a balled up piece of bloodied gauze, and a pile of weirdly withered black leaves, all littering the coffee table, not to mention an open first aid kit left out on their nest of cushions. What happened in here...?!

When Alberto hears the door open, he clumsily sits up and rolls over on the floor to face Luca better. But despite a sort of wildness in his eyes, something frenetic barely tugging his tone of voice, and the even-more-chaotic-than-usual state of the room, he acts as if... everything's normal... because of course he'll play this off nonchalantly to start. ]

Oh. Ciao, Luca. How goes it?